This thread is to track the progress of a mediocre team, in an empty conference, to see how long it takes to turn around a cellar dwellar D3 team.
Desales was chosen for it's location. NY/Philly area should provide lots of D2 pulldown players.
Adams and Hurlburt were pulldowns the first season. They probably were on the D3 screen of anyone with good prestige.
Adams will be a very good player by his Sr season. All else were pretty average for a good team, but decent for a C prestige.

Much improved.
We lose one transfer that didn't play.
We should be decent next season as we improve 40 or so points as a team... probably 1st round exit in the NT as we should begin to take over the sims here.
I would think 20 wins for next season would be in reach.
The following season we should play a couple rounds in the NT, and raise our prestige to a point we can recruit a little better player to replace our 5.

our record is actually worse than last season. Last year we had 3-4 bad seniors... but a couple of them did play and allowed us a few wins.
This season we were becoming competetive with pretty much every team by the end of the season except for the 2-3 with RPI near 100.
Next season as our IQ's continue to improve, we should pass them as well and I would set a goal for our RPI around 50-75.
We are still playing with average players recruited with a C prestige.

I had one opening, I called about 20 coaches the last day of recruiting and got 2 favorable responses. I scouted NY.
Rice was high in RB and Def. That was enough for me.
10 SV's and he wasn't interested. I sent another. Nothing. I sent my last 3 and he pulled down.
Spent $2,200, He is High/High in RB and Def, only low in Spd and Pass.
FT and Stam are Blue as well.
He will end around 665 and be a very good big man for 2-3 seasons for this team.
His LP and PE will top out in the 30's so he won't be a huge scorer, but his defense and offensive boards should be huge.
Miller took a RS as a soph, so he and Rice will be a good combo in the paint their Jr and Sr seasons.

as can be seen above. we have pretty well passed the sim coached teams of the conference after 2 seasons.
We "should" go undefeated in conference, however since we don't have a senior on the team, our IQ's are still a little low.
FCP with mediocre IQ's will spell 3-4 losses at least I would think.
As the season ends, we, again, "should" be better than the rest of the conference, and win the CT and play in the NT just by that alone.
Next season with 11 upperclassmen, (even average ones), should be fun.

Preseason Rankings, Desales is the 5th team outside the top-25, so ranked 30th.
Rankings are mostly derived from overall ratings and seniors... we changed to FCP from zone mid season in season #1 so we are still behind on development in our Defensive IQ's. We have about 7-8 guys in the B range in press. That will not cut it when we get to the end of the season. Most of those I hope will get to A-, if not we won't make the NT. The sim is very unforgiving for press teams with less than an A-, Next season with most of the team in the A ranged we could be pretty decent.

"Checkpoint"
We are 11 games (14 practices), into the season.... 550 overall rated.
Thats decent. I would think maybe a second round exit in the NT possibly and a B prestige maybe?
We have no seniors. Next season we should begin around 575 and end at or above 600 overall.
Even with players recruited with terrible prestige... we "should" be alot to handle.
There simply aren't many bad 600 rated teams... however, we will have so many flaws still I would expect us to still be beaten in the 2nd or 3rd round of the NT.
We will then graduate 5 from that first class. Hopefully we will have our prestige in the low A range by that time.
That recruiting class with $15,000 plus a couple thousand from the NT and full carryover will be close to $18,000.
That recruiting class will be huge. (make us or break us).
4 more recruits the following season will be nearly as important as well.
Sounds silly to be looking a year away in real time to a couple seasons... but that is what this experiment is about.
Season #73.
If there was ever a team in HD built to have a chance at 35-0. That might be the one.
I "expect" that team to end that season at or near 625-635 overall rated.
Still 5-6 seasons away, and alot of luck left to be needed... but we are pretty well on course at this point.

I originally started this thread just as a place to post a couple things each season to track the progress of Desales.
I may as time goes by add some thoughts I have about this team and D3 in general.
I don't pretent to have any great secrets about HD, or be the greatest coach, however, I do have several titles (5) across 3-4 accounts and even tho I have lost alot of my excitement for the game... (I hope this project will renew something I have lost),.in case anyone new to the game may come across this, I will try to take a few minutes a couple times a season and shine some light on what I'm doing here.

#1. they were in or near Philly / NY City.
#2. They were in a nearly empty conference.
#3. their prestige was C level (Bad).

This team is an experiment in winning a D3 title.... nothing else.
Most teams / coaches think the same thing, but really most seasons there are 15-20 teams with a real shot at winning.

The entire reason for this team, is to go from ground zero... have absolutely no help from my conference, and win a title 100% by coaching.
I need to add before I go any further... I believe probably 95% of the time, The team that wins a title in HD has to have several lucky breaks along the way.
Some luck you can create or improve your odds on, some you just close your eyes and hope for. You have to have both.
Michigan State in Crum just won a D1 title.
Before the season started, I posted on our ACC Coaches corner that they would go 35-0 and no-one would stop them.
They did. They were really that good. However, they had to have alot of luck just to get to that point.
Things fell exactly right for them in recruiting for them to land the guys they had.
The players then had to have alot of High/high potentials to develop to where they were.
They then had to survive the abomination we call Early Entry into the NBA draft...
Then they had to win several OT or coin-flip type games down the stretch to finally end 35-0.
It can be done. But be assured luck will be involved..... and the Random Number Generator.
The RNG is the friend of the average to weak team. It's the reason they win those games when the really shouldn't.
It's the reason the coaches of those pretty good teams scream out and have meltdowns on their Coaches Corner